THE POWER OF NICE

Rated a “Top 10 Business Book” by 800-CEO-READ in 2010

Nice guys finish last… or do they?

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, THE POWER OF NICE, debunks this long-held belief and shows how a little kindness goes a long way — in both business and your personal life. As the founders of a billion-dollar advertising agency, they know: it pays to be nice.

Tue, May 07, 2013 - 1:15:56

Negative or Positive Tweets: Which flies faster?

The American Council on Science and Health recently reported that “Negative messages about children’s vaccines are more likely to be spread on Twitter than positive messages.” This was according to research led by Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State University, who also shared that the study, “found that a high volume of negative tweets seemed to encourage people to tweet more negatively.”

As we’ve previously discussed on this blog and in The Power of Nice, negative impressions are like germs. That is, rude gestures and remarks have the ability to spread like wildfire, infecting not just you, but everyone around you. And in the Twittersphere, a negative tweet, retweet or hashtag can travel around the world at lightning speed. 140 characters can pack a powerful punch, and Twitter’s multiplier effect enables those negative germs to spread faster and be more impactful than ever before.

But outside the health arena, does the same hold true on Twitter? Inspired by the study, Mashable took a broader look at the topic in the piece, “Are Negative Twitter Messages Contagious?” Surveying several social media experts, the article cited another recent study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, which “found that people do share good news online, partially because of the desire to share the “awe” factor of content. And when comparing negative to positive content, people prefer sharing positively-themed content….. sometimes it’s not just about the content itself as much as who shares it. The right influencer retweeting content can have an extremely profound effect on total shares.”

Twitter’s power –for both good and bad – cannot and should not be underestimated. Just as negative impressions are like germs, we also believe positive actions are like seeds on Twitter, and that positivity can grow and expand exponentially, changing the world for the better one Tweet at a time.

So, the next time you go to hit that blue button, pause a second and remember #thepowerofnice.